The pity is this pol is right but intellectually incapable or unwilling to follow through to its next logical conclusion. Even worse, he is singular in his frank admission. There should be a chorus of such voices. The West should be re-evaluating the delusion that led to such an epic failure. Instead, the media is shoving pro-jihadist stooges like Obama down our throats while the jihadists control the narrative at every level.

This is certainly true. I warned in March 2003
that the idea of bringing democracy to the Middle East was unrealistic
(at best), and over the years here at Jihad Watch Hugh Fitzgerald wrote
many times about the folly of the Iraq and Afghanistan projects, and how
that folly was based on a faulty understanding of Islam, emanating from
the Bush Administration's acceptance of the Armstrong/Esposito/CAIR
propaganda line about Islam being a religion of peace, etc.

Now Jim Murphy acknowledges that the failure of both adventures
stemmed from an inadequate understanding of Islam, and in response he
recommends...more of the same.

"Iraq war plan based on 'primitive' grasp of Islam, admits Labour frontbencher," by Nick Hopkins in the Guardian, February 13:

Labour has conceded for the first time that a "primitive
understanding" of the Islamic world caused some of the problems faced by
the west in Iraq and Afghanistan, and warned David Cameron his response
to the terrorist crisis in north Africa shows he has not learned the
painful lessons from those conflicts.

In a speech on Thursday, Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary,
will suggest the Blair government did not appreciate what it was getting
itself into after the September 11 attacks, as British forces joined
the international effort to overthrow the Taliban and hunt down Osama
bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

Murphy will stop short of saying Labour was wrong to have supported
the invasions, but will say Cameron is in danger of ignoring lessons
from the past in his analysis of the jihadist threat in Mali and
Algeria.

In particular, he will criticise the prime minister for a speech in
which he said the UK faces a "generational struggle" against
Islamist-inspired terrorism in the region.

"Some of the political language applied in response to recent events
has suggested a natural continuation of the 9/11 world and in turn the
strategy then deployed," Murphy will say.

"The prime minister's declaration of a 'generational struggle'
oversimplifies the nature of the threat and compounds rather than learns
the lessons from the past."

Murphy will say it would be wrong for Downing Street to suggest there
are parallels between the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan and Pakistan,
and the "patchwork of loose alliances" that constitute al-Qaida in the
Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

"Al-Qaida was presented as a coherent entity. While truer in the
past, it is now a looser franchise. A search for simplicity led to
solutions which paid insufficient regard to the complexity of local
circumstance. Today the patchwork of loose alliances which comprise the
extremist threat in north and west Africa is essential to understand."

Ignorance caused many of the difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan,
Murphy will say, and now is the time to "assess lessons from recent
history".

"An almost primitive understanding of the Afghan population, culture
and geography prior to Nato's intervention severely undermined
international attempts to work with proxies, and our political strategy
was in its conception insufficiently representative."

Murphy will admit that it "took too long for us to see the training
of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police as a strategic
priority."

...which shows that he still doesn't get it.

In Iraq, he will say, "there was a serious deficit in
Western comprehension of the Sunni-Shia or intra-Shia dynamics. We know
that de-Baathification left a lethal vacuum."

He will go on to say: "Mali shows neither we nor our allies have
fully applied these lessons. While necessary to act, Mali is a failure
in prevention and foresight. Mali has been on the critical list for a
long time yet action has been rushed, with shifting objectives. Trainers
should be sent to deter a crisis rather than in response to it. An
internationally driven political solution is in its infancy at best."

In his speech to the Henry Jackson Society, Murphy will commit a
future Labour government to retaining an interventionist defence policy,
but insist this can be done without resorting to "heavy-footprint
operations we do not want to repeat".

He will say: "While Iraq and Afghanistan have been painful and
rightly controversial, we cannot hide from the fact that events and
threats overseas may necessitate the use of military force. A belief
that we have responsibility beyond our borders is not, as some would
have it, ideological, but an essential response to the world in which we
live. Our nation should be haunted by the isolationist reticence of
Douglas Hurd over Bosnia and the tragedy we witnessed in Rwanda."

To prevent future crises, he will say, the UK needs to engage with
fragile nations, invest early and offer training to build up local
defences against militant groups.

...which recommendations show again that he still doesn't get it.

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c60bf53ef017d41201775970c

Comments

UK pol admits that Iraq and Afghanistan adventures were doomed by "primitive" grasp of Islam

The pity is this pol is right but intellectually incapable or unwilling to follow through to its next logical conclusion. Even worse, he is singular in his frank admission. There should be a chorus of such voices. The West should be re-evaluating the delusion that led to such an epic failure. Instead, the media is shoving pro-jihadist stooges like Obama down our throats while the jihadists control the narrative at every level.

This is certainly true. I warned in March 2003
that the idea of bringing democracy to the Middle East was unrealistic
(at best), and over the years here at Jihad Watch Hugh Fitzgerald wrote
many times about the folly of the Iraq and Afghanistan projects, and how
that folly was based on a faulty understanding of Islam, emanating from
the Bush Administration's acceptance of the Armstrong/Esposito/CAIR
propaganda line about Islam being a religion of peace, etc.

Now Jim Murphy acknowledges that the failure of both adventures
stemmed from an inadequate understanding of Islam, and in response he
recommends...more of the same.

"Iraq war plan based on 'primitive' grasp of Islam, admits Labour frontbencher," by Nick Hopkins in the Guardian, February 13:

Labour has conceded for the first time that a "primitive
understanding" of the Islamic world caused some of the problems faced by
the west in Iraq and Afghanistan, and warned David Cameron his response
to the terrorist crisis in north Africa shows he has not learned the
painful lessons from those conflicts.

In a speech on Thursday, Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary,
will suggest the Blair government did not appreciate what it was getting
itself into after the September 11 attacks, as British forces joined
the international effort to overthrow the Taliban and hunt down Osama
bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

Murphy will stop short of saying Labour was wrong to have supported
the invasions, but will say Cameron is in danger of ignoring lessons
from the past in his analysis of the jihadist threat in Mali and
Algeria.

In particular, he will criticise the prime minister for a speech in
which he said the UK faces a "generational struggle" against
Islamist-inspired terrorism in the region.

"Some of the political language applied in response to recent events
has suggested a natural continuation of the 9/11 world and in turn the
strategy then deployed," Murphy will say.

"The prime minister's declaration of a 'generational struggle'
oversimplifies the nature of the threat and compounds rather than learns
the lessons from the past."

Murphy will say it would be wrong for Downing Street to suggest there
are parallels between the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan and Pakistan,
and the "patchwork of loose alliances" that constitute al-Qaida in the
Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

"Al-Qaida was presented as a coherent entity. While truer in the
past, it is now a looser franchise. A search for simplicity led to
solutions which paid insufficient regard to the complexity of local
circumstance. Today the patchwork of loose alliances which comprise the
extremist threat in north and west Africa is essential to understand."

Ignorance caused many of the difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan,
Murphy will say, and now is the time to "assess lessons from recent
history".

"An almost primitive understanding of the Afghan population, culture
and geography prior to Nato's intervention severely undermined
international attempts to work with proxies, and our political strategy
was in its conception insufficiently representative."

Murphy will admit that it "took too long for us to see the training
of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police as a strategic
priority."

...which shows that he still doesn't get it.

In Iraq, he will say, "there was a serious deficit in
Western comprehension of the Sunni-Shia or intra-Shia dynamics. We know
that de-Baathification left a lethal vacuum."

He will go on to say: "Mali shows neither we nor our allies have
fully applied these lessons. While necessary to act, Mali is a failure
in prevention and foresight. Mali has been on the critical list for a
long time yet action has been rushed, with shifting objectives. Trainers
should be sent to deter a crisis rather than in response to it. An
internationally driven political solution is in its infancy at best."

In his speech to the Henry Jackson Society, Murphy will commit a
future Labour government to retaining an interventionist defence policy,
but insist this can be done without resorting to "heavy-footprint
operations we do not want to repeat".

He will say: "While Iraq and Afghanistan have been painful and
rightly controversial, we cannot hide from the fact that events and
threats overseas may necessitate the use of military force. A belief
that we have responsibility beyond our borders is not, as some would
have it, ideological, but an essential response to the world in which we
live. Our nation should be haunted by the isolationist reticence of
Douglas Hurd over Bosnia and the tragedy we witnessed in Rwanda."

To prevent future crises, he will say, the UK needs to engage with
fragile nations, invest early and offer training to build up local
defences against militant groups.